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[Heroes of the Storm] Artifacts removed. And there was much rejoicing!
Lucascraft
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
What was once just a single map and went by the name "Blizzard DotA" soon became a small project known as "Blizzard All-Stars."
That small project was just re-announced this year at BlizzCon 2013 as a stand-alone product that Blizzard is putting a lot of effort into. Heroes of the Storm, or HotS for short (not to be confused with Heart of the Swarm which is another Blizzard product known as HotS), is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA.
At Blizzcon 2013, Blizzard said that during early builds of the game, they did indeed have the classic DotA/MOBA Three-lane map, but they found that during internal testing, their players did not want to play the classic map after they had a taste of the new Battleground maps that were created.
Beta Sign-ups for Heroes of the Storm are now live on Blizzard's website. All you need to do is sign into your Battle.net account and check the box next to HotS to op-in.
Official Website:
http://www.heroesofthestorm.com/en-us
Resource & Info Sites:
http://www.heroesnexus.com/
Penny Arcade Alpha Player's List! <--- Add yourself to the Google doc and play games with other PA folk
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VPz6ZKRDFS91WP_f5fzWmnnlhN0B7kRYGtJRSbqNzFw/edit#gid=0
**NOTE** Friend Invites must be done from -IN GAME- because the Alpha is not synced up with the BNet launcher app.
The current alpha build of HotS was available for play on the showroom floor at BlizzCon 2013, and featured 18 playable heroes.
Heroes:
Abathur - Specialist. Can attach to a host teammate and affect a battle without being physically present. Has a "Deep Burrow" ability which serves as a mapwide teleport.
Arthas - Warrior. Has a mix of frost and undead abilities. Is meant to engage and initiate team battles. Can summon Sindragosa as one of his ultimate abilities.
Diablo - Warrior. Has many of his signature moves from Diablo 2, including Fire Nova and a charge attack. Very strong tank character.
Elite Tauren Chieftain (ETC) - Warrior. Mobility tank with an ultimate move called "Mosh Pit" which stuns his opponents in a large area for a short amount of time.
Falstad - Assassin. Medium ranged fighter with high mobility. Throws lightning hammers and can quickly move around the battlefield on his griffon mount.
Gazlowe - Specialist. Goblin tinker with the ability to spawn stationary turrets. Acts as a siege hero and long range strike support. Not good in physical confrontations.
Illidan - Assassin. Agility melee hero. Very quick and agile. Can close the distance to his enemies and deal a lot of burst damage.
Kerrigan - Assassin. Medium and short range attacks. She is versatile and has a strong mix of abilities that make her a threat on the battlefield no matter where she is positioned.
Malfurion - Support. Healing abilities, also has an AOE root ability.
Naziba - Specialist. Witch Doctor. Spawn minions. Excels at siege and making lane pushes. Long ranged abilities.
Nova - Assassin. Long range specialist. Has a sniper rifle and short duration cloaking ability. Has the ability to call down a nuke like the ghosts in Starcraft.
Raynor - Assassin. Medium and long range attacks. Can call down an orbital strike from his Battlecruiser. Is said to be an easy hero to learn on.
Sonya - Warrior. Barbarian tank character. Has a leap attack and whirlwind, two of the signature moves from Diablo. Very good at initiation and also chasing down runners.
Stitches - Warrior. Has the ability to hook an enemy into melee range. One of his ultimate abilities is to leave behind a potent poison trail as he moves.
Tassadar - Support. Shieds and damage prevention are his specialty. Not much else is known at this time.
Tyrael - Warrior. Has mobility to allow him to get quickly into the action. Also has a shield ability that allows him to prevent damage to a teammate and redirect that damage to himself at a reduced rate.
Uther - Support. Paladin character, can heal, shield, and protect his team. Has a self heal that makes him quite a challenging target to take down without a lot of focus.
Valla - Assassin. Diablo 3 Hunter. Has a mix of long range attacks, mobility moves, and traps.
Arthas - Warrior. Has a mix of frost and undead abilities. Is meant to engage and initiate team battles. Can summon Sindragosa as one of his ultimate abilities.
Diablo - Warrior. Has many of his signature moves from Diablo 2, including Fire Nova and a charge attack. Very strong tank character.
Elite Tauren Chieftain (ETC) - Warrior. Mobility tank with an ultimate move called "Mosh Pit" which stuns his opponents in a large area for a short amount of time.
Falstad - Assassin. Medium ranged fighter with high mobility. Throws lightning hammers and can quickly move around the battlefield on his griffon mount.
Gazlowe - Specialist. Goblin tinker with the ability to spawn stationary turrets. Acts as a siege hero and long range strike support. Not good in physical confrontations.
Illidan - Assassin. Agility melee hero. Very quick and agile. Can close the distance to his enemies and deal a lot of burst damage.
Kerrigan - Assassin. Medium and short range attacks. She is versatile and has a strong mix of abilities that make her a threat on the battlefield no matter where she is positioned.
Malfurion - Support. Healing abilities, also has an AOE root ability.
Naziba - Specialist. Witch Doctor. Spawn minions. Excels at siege and making lane pushes. Long ranged abilities.
Nova - Assassin. Long range specialist. Has a sniper rifle and short duration cloaking ability. Has the ability to call down a nuke like the ghosts in Starcraft.
Raynor - Assassin. Medium and long range attacks. Can call down an orbital strike from his Battlecruiser. Is said to be an easy hero to learn on.
Sonya - Warrior. Barbarian tank character. Has a leap attack and whirlwind, two of the signature moves from Diablo. Very good at initiation and also chasing down runners.
Stitches - Warrior. Has the ability to hook an enemy into melee range. One of his ultimate abilities is to leave behind a potent poison trail as he moves.
Tassadar - Support. Shieds and damage prevention are his specialty. Not much else is known at this time.
Tyrael - Warrior. Has mobility to allow him to get quickly into the action. Also has a shield ability that allows him to prevent damage to a teammate and redirect that damage to himself at a reduced rate.
Uther - Support. Paladin character, can heal, shield, and protect his team. Has a self heal that makes him quite a challenging target to take down without a lot of focus.
Valla - Assassin. Diablo 3 Hunter. Has a mix of long range attacks, mobility moves, and traps.
Videos!
Cinematic Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ecv0bT9DEoGameplay Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_fAkO3WOSYDeveloper Interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnhI_JotfcYCartoon Trailer 1 (Announcement Trailer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eThSo670casCartoon Trailer 2 (Blizzcon 2013)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iY_olSZ1LwGame Info:
Four Class Types
Assassin - Damage and Burst Heroes. These are the Heroes designed to get kills, do damage, and harm the enemy team
Warrior - Tank and Initiation. These are the Heroes who get into the thick of it and initiate team battles.
Support - Heals, Buffs, and Shields. These Heroes provide restoration, damage prevention, battle augmentation, and other types of support to keep their teammates in the game.
Specialist - Siege, Pets, and Other. These Heroes fill roles outside of the traditional Tank/Heal/DPS genre. Expect lots of unique and crazy gameplay from this class type.
Battlegrounds
Blackheart's Bay - A ghost pirate themed map, where the objective is coin collection. A CTF variant, where multiple "flags" are scattered about the map and must be collected and carried to a dropoff point.
Cursed Hollow - A powerful entity known as the Raven Lord has a presence on this map. The players collect tributes to give to the Raven Lord, which causes him to cast a curse on the enemy team, weakening their towers and minions for a period of time.
Dragonshire - A two point territory control map. The objective is to control the north an south points simultaneously, and then send a hero to the Dragon Shrine in the middle of the map, where he or she becomes a powerful super character that will destroy the enemy team.
Haunted Mines - A map where both teams battle enemies to claim their skulls and return them for points. This is a competitive PVE map, where PVP happens when two teams show up to kill the same enemies for their skulls.
Lucascraft on
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Screenshot featuring a few heroes not yet officially announced:
Magni, Anu'berak, Zeratul, and Zagara (Broodmother)
Three Skins for Uther -- Judgement Armor, SC Medic Armor, and Lumberjack
Three Alternate Skins for -- Diablo, Kerrigan, Tassadar
An image of 6 heroes on screen in a battle
A badass piece of concept art, featuring a couple other unannounced heroes - Chen Stormstout and Sylvannas
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I also need to find some good images of the known heroes. So far the images I've found are much too big. I might have to just crop them and upload them onto my own Photobucket or something.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
But that's just one video. Waiting for some actual proper gameplay videos.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Which is fucking awesome.
Gimme a third person action adventure game where I get to beat up on iconic Blizzard characters please.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
If they focus on map variety rather than hero variety, I would be so sold, so hard. Also, giving creeps more interaction beyond "use as meat shield/lane block" or "kill for exp/bling".
Also if none of the maps have an Annihilator I shall be sad.
Looks like this would be a great chance to start fresh.
Hi BRT
The closest so far would be Blackheart's Bay, with the cursed ghost pirate's ghost ship. But instead of rushing to him every time he's up and spending a bunch of currency that has basically no use in the rest of the game, you've gotta grab coins that spawn around the map and bring them to him without dying/getting the crap kicked out of you and you drop them.
Probably not as OP as the Annihilator, but sounds to be incredibly useful.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
http://www.dailydot.com/esports/blizzard-heroes-storm-moba-blizzcon/
Joe's Stream.
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
Or it's a way to empower the role of support classes?
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
It's still a penalty to the player who wants to farm up and get their items like everybody else. This way there's no conflict of interest, everyone is in the same boat at all times and so they can focus simply on winning the game.
may work to their advantage to draw in a bigger crowd. Maybe Blizzard will finally create a MOBA with a low barrier to entry.
If they want esports (and I'm sure they do, despite what they've said) they have a tough row to hoe, and I'm not sure this is their best strategy
Would a killing blow/experience gained by character breakdown at the end of the game assuage those who want to feel the are carrying their team? Probably.
Which is why everyone jumps on the oppurtunity to play support in DOTA and League.
Because everyone relishes having sections of the game where they feel underpowered.
I haven't put much time into DotA2 so I can't really speak to how support works in that game. But as a player who prefers the support role in MOBAs, I am really looking forward to the shared XP mechanic.
MOBAs, even in pickup games, are still a team game, and I really hate the lone wolf players who just hop on Akali or Katarina or whatever, and just do their own thing, trying to maximize their kill count and XP even if that isn't the best thing for the team. Sometimes there are other activities which are strategically the best option at a specific point in time, and having that guy on your team who just wants to fluff his own ego with a massive kill count isn't doing his team any favors.
Basically I like the shared level because the game doesn't have any emphasis on farming at all. From what we've seen it's 100% objective based all the time. You want one person in each lane to get XP for minions dying near (assuming that's a thing) but otherwise it's obviously centred as being a team game with constant action. Adding in a need to farm anything would be silly.
It doesn't even get rid of the ability to have 'carry' style characters either. Unless all feats are available to pick without level restrictions.
Plus you still get punished for dying by the enemy team getting an XP jolt. Awesomenaut's does the same thing in that regard.
The dynamic of having characters at different power levels is gone, yes, but in its place you get the dynamics of being able to perform more roles at more times - you have more options at any given moment in HotS because you won't be underleveled. So in that way it expands the strategic possibilities rather than pigeonholing a support hero into a very specific sort of role.
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Other heroes that we are very likely to see, even if they haven't been officially announced yet. This is my own list, with a bit of skill speculation thrown in.
Jaina - Mage character with frost magic. Probably will be able to root or incapacitate people. Other possible spells include Polymorph and Iceblock.
Thrall - Shaman character. Probably either support or medium/short range DPS. Will likely have totems, lightning spells, and a hammer.
Zeratul - Stealth/Rogue character. Will probably have the ability to do blinks or blink-strikes and turn invisible.
Blackthorne Guy - From Blizzard's SNES platformer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackthorne
Right now, the roster is pretty light on support characters, so I expect that we will see a few more of those announced in the weeks and months ahead.
Reservedly interested.
Sounds like a playstyle I'll like.
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Because you can still get an advantage against opponents. You'll see in that vid the guys with level advantage after an objective score tended to set the pace for the next few minutes.